YI Halo – 8K VR camera from YI Technology & Google

YI Technology has made clear with the YI 4K and the YI 4K+ , who is the next big player on the Action Cam market. This has also recognized the mother of all search engines Google and, in collaboration with YI, brings the YI Halo out – a virtual reality camera with 8K resolution .

Delivery

For sluggish $ 17,000, the camera will be available in late summer. The YI Halo (includes 17 YI 4K Action Cams and a touch screen), two YI 4Ks as a replacement, a Bluetooth trigger, a 93 Wh battery, a charging cable, various spare cables, two screwdrivers and a Pelican 1610 case . So you are really well equipped, which is for such a high price but also to be expected.

In the Pelican 1610 the YI Halo (including accessories) is securely stowed away.

The design

In the camera position, 16 YI 4Ks are arranged circular, another is aligned upwards and is located in the middle of the rig. According to YI 17 Lexar 1000x U3 or SanDisk Extreme Pro U3 with max. 64 GB can be used.

The direct control runs through the built-in 2.2 inch LCD touch display with 640 * 360 pixel resolution . In addition, the integrated real-time monitoring system outputs various messages via the screen. For example. When the memory cards are almost full, the battery is soon empty, or one of the cameras does not work. Should the latter occur, the defective unit can be exchanged and synchronized without any problem.

The whole fun is operated with a 93 Wh strong battery, which should take 100 minutes recording time. The usage while charging is possible . Alternatively, the YI Halo can be supplied with power via the socket.

The camera can also be used during charging.

One of the key features of the Halo is the weight of only 3.49 kg. Other 360 ° cameras are much heavier.

Photos & Videos

The YI Halo has installed a SONY IMX377 (12 MP) image sensor and an Ambarella A9SE75 chipset per camera unit . In addition, another Ambarella A9SE75 chipset is housed. With Google’s stitching software “Jump” , full-spherical videos with up to 8K resolution at 29.97 frames per second are created . 5760 x 5760 at 59.94 fps are also possible for action shooting.

The resolution of the halo is also necessary for a nice picture, because the rectangular photos and videos are projected onto a sphere, which is affected by the quality. 8K therefore correspond to a “normal” 4K resolution.

APP

The app YI Halo is already available for Android 5.0 or higher. Features include a live image of the camera, firmware updates, which are transmitted with just one click on all camera units, and various shooting settings. The connection to the app is made possible via the 5 GHz Wlan network of the camera, which is provided by the integrated Broadcom BCM43340 radio module.

Conclusion

The YI Halo gives us an incredible 8K resolution and comes with plenty of accessories. Even two replacement cameras are included! The pictures look great and professional filmmakers will surely have their fun with the full-spherical recordings. Even an upgrade with 17 YI 4K + already indicated YI. However, I have two questions:

Why can the camera units “only” with 2.5K resolution film, although theoretically 4K in it would be (which would ultimately the top 8K resolution)?

Why is the YI Halo damn $ 17,000? Even if the cameras rausrechchnet, one pays for the software, the Rig and further accessories still over $ 10,000, which is in my opinion is really exaggerated.

I would like to know your opinion about YI Halo! If you are interested in a panorama camera for normal mortals, you can read the articles on the YI 360 VR, Xiaomi Mijia 360 and Insta360 Air.